Ashley F. Miller is a writer, activist, and communications scholar from South Carolina, who has worked for LGBT, secular, and women’s rights for over a decade. She is one of the leading young people in the secular movement, speaking regularly at schools and conferences across the country about feminism and communications. Her writing was recently featured in the best-selling Women's Studies text, Women's Voices, Feminist Visions, alongside writers like Gloria Steinem, bell hooks, Maya Angelou, and Jessica Valenti.

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A reader asked why I didn't have one of these, so I figured out how to make one and it exists. They were kind enough to give me a donation, I was very surprised! So, if there is anyone else out there who was lamenting that this capability did not exist, it exists now, but please, do not feel obligated. Thank you for reading!

I haven’t been writing enough this week. I think only a couple thousand all week. I’ve been busy, is part of it, and I haven’t felt that well on top of it. I have a stomach ache that’s lasted since like Wednesday. This corresponds with my attempt to eat slightly better. Maybe my digestive tract is saying it cannot survive without daily candy intake.

Last night, I sat down to write, I was all ready, had busted out a couple hundred in like 10 minutes, and I got a phone call from my mother. She has taken my younger brother to Las Vegas for his birthday. My brother had managed to lose his wallet in the first, oh, hour or so that they’d been on the ground and I had to go get into my mother’s safe and see if I could find his passport and get it to someone else who was flying to Las Vegas. And to also scan and email it out to them.

So, that adventure rather prevented a lot of writing to happen. So I’m like 9000 words behind where I’d like to be.

Right, so, I’m about 48% of the way to 50k, which is good. I have 26217 words remaining to write to win NaNo. According to my computer models, this is about 16 hours of work and, at current pace, I’ll be done on November 14th.

My excel sheets super math estimation of my final length is 98555. So, I’m only about 24% through the novel itself. This is about 44 hours of work and, at current pace, I’ll be done on November 29th.

I have so far added one chapter, which gives 20 chapters, a prologue and an epilogue, which I’ve combined into one chapter in the calculations game, since they’re shortish.

I have completed 5.5/21 chapters.

Maybe the most interesting thing I can say is that my completed feature screenplay is less than 19,000 words long. This thing is going to be the length of 5 screenplays put together. I sometimes suspect my definition of interesting is a bit off…

I don’t know how much blogging I’ll be doing throughout NaNoWriMo. Maybe less, since I have other writing to do, maybe more since I’ll already be writing. I still have write ups of my Cleveland trip to do, I’d like to maybe interview Micah Ranum about winning the Nicholl, so I need to come up with questions, and I am about to finish book 60, so I need to do book reviews as well.

In any event, an hour into NaNoWriMo and I have 2075 words. Which is pretty good. I have this crazy idea that it would be possible for me to get to 10k by the end of the first. If I can continue at this pace and write for four hours this evening, it’s possible. I just suspect these first couple of days are going to be easier to direct energy towards it because it’ll still be exciting and young, so as far ahead as I can get early on is a good thing.

This program I’m using, Scrivener, is really cool, I highly recommend it to anyone out there who is writing. They allow you to do a free trial, so very little risk involved there.

Sometimes, when I have a hard time or am rushing through trying to establish characters in my mind in a sort of Fixed way, I do a big image search and try to set tonally what I want a character to feel like.

Psychology
Sex life, moral standards: A big fan of sex, but easily bored by partners (who are generally princesses, so can you blame him?) Moral, in a sort of chaotic neutral self-interested way. Like a cat. Willing to be heroic for things he cares about, like his secretary.
Personal premise, ambition: Originally, to take over the magical world through creating corporations and unions. Now, to hold it together and not let his own inability to focus on non-active things destroy it.
Frustrations, chief disappointments: Secretary will not sleep with him. Easily bored. Currently, witches strike.
Temperament: Catlike
Attitude towards life: Alternately bored, malicious, and giddy with hate
Complexes: Narcissist
Extrovert, introvert, ambivert: Parasitically extroverted
Abilities: Magic, being really attractive, being entertaining assuming one’s entertainment isn’t lessened by moral qualms
Qualities: Arrogant, talented, impulsive, emotional, difficult to get to sit still
I. Q. Astronomical

Sociology
Class: Peasant
Occupation: Farmer
Education: Self, lots of books
Home life: Father is sick, field hand is old, she does most of the farm work
Religion: Nominally whatever the local thing is, but not religious
Race, nationality: Plains
Place in community: Bit of an outcast
Political Affiliations: Doesn’t know what politics is
Amusements, hobbies: reading, trying unsuccessfully to do magic

Psychology
Sex life, moral standards: None, very high
Personal premise, ambition: Wants to become a witch to save her father and incidentally punish the idiots in her village who are total assholes to her. Later, to punish the witches and make them cure her dad. Also, to avoid marriage.
Frustrations, chief disappointments: Couldn’t leave to get an education because her father was sick, lost her mother at a young age, the stupidity of boys.
Temperament: Matter of fact, bossy, and easily irritated
Attitude towards life: Attempting to subdue it to her will
Complexes: A perhaps not totally merited sense of self-worth
Extrovert, introvert, ambivert: ambivert
Abilities: lifting heavy things, sticktoitiveness, fairly clever
Qualities:
I. Q. High, but not absurdly so

Additional: Touchy about her weight. She’s solid in the way of hardworking farm girls, which is to say not fat, but nothing like a waif.

Psychology
Sex life, moral standards: Unknown, but won’t sleep with her boss
Personal premise, ambition: To turn Amalfia into a democracy when her father dies, to avoid getting pregnant until that point
Frustrations, chief disappointments: Her family is awful, her boss is usually an idiot, she could run the company better than him
Temperament: Stern
Attitude towards life: Stern
Complexes: Self-loathing, family loathing, sort of loathing in general
Extrovert, introvert, ambivert: Introvert who drinks to become an extrovert
Abilities: Change hair colors, doesn’t seem to notice pain, can ignore brutally stupid things, apparently never bored, excellent needlepoint
Qualities:
I. Q. Pretty high